Black Pineapple Tomato (aka Ananas Noire): Verdict

Just picked my first black pineapple tomato and ate it with lunch today. It was allowed to vine ripen, cut and served fresh within minutes of coming off the vine. Aka, the best possible scenario.

The final verdict? Not worth the effort.

While it was nice and meaty with fairly low moisture, which would make me initially expect lots of flavor as a sauce like tomato, nadda. It was bland and tasteless. As in I've had "picked green and ripened with gas" store bought tomatoes with more taste than this thing had.

Luckily, I also picked a handful of my blue tomatoes to go along with it for lunch, and those were sweet, sweet candy, so at least that part was good.

The black pineapple is definitely on my "never plant again" list, right up there with Mr. Stripey. Well, thats not fair to the black pineapple, it did at least produce plenty of nice big fruit, unlike Mr. Stripey.

It should be sweet and fruity tasting. Also, I never judge a tomato by its first fruit. I'm not sure why, but the first one, especially of large varieties, often does not taste as good a subsequent fruit. I'm not saying that this one could turn into a favorite, but at least give it a chance to have more flavor than a gassed store tomato.

I only grew it once but I didn't like the taste either and never was motivated to grow it again.

Maybe something about me doesn't allow for liking varieties that have multiple colors both inside and outside, I don't know, b/c I do know that lots of folks do like this variety as well as many of Brad Gate's varieties which also are multicolored both inside and out. Same for Captain Lucky,not one of Brad's.

I thought I'd link to Tania's site, below, to her page about Ananas Noire so folks could see where it's from and the backgound. When you scroll down to 2012 seed sources you'll also see The Sample Seed Shop mentioned and that's owned by Remy who posted above. A great seed site with sample sized packets for tomatoes and much more at very low cost and when folks ask for good seed sites here ar GW it usually is on that list with several others, and that includes Tania herself who sells seed for tomatoes, etc.

Remy is a long time friend so I feel comfortable suggesting to her that she might want to go to the De Camillo Bakery in
Buffalo, and well, Remy, your choice b'c my Birthday is the week after this week. LOL

Carolyn, who is not Remy's agent. ( smile) Oh, that candy place in Buffalo would be OK as well.LOL

Carolyn,
You are the expert, so I would take your word if you say they are the same variety. I was browsing the website of a nursery/seed distributor in Manitoba and she mentioned that the two are not the same. It sure would be interesting to hear about the optimal growing conditions for producing a great tasting Ananas Noire.

Donna, it's not just my word that says they are the same and I gave you the link to Tania's description about it, which is correct and her info is from the SSE YEarbooks when the variety was first listed by Luc and described by him, and if you Google it you'll find the same.

And I do think I even know the nursery in Manitoba you speak of although I'm thinking of a seed site now, not a nursery website, but it's also good to remember that not all descriptions of varieties at all seed catalogs/websites may be correct, and indeed some are very wrong. I speak here of one in Canada that had/has many wrong descriptions that led to a long thread at another message site about that, trying to point out what was wrong to the seed site owner and trying in a helpful way.

The small ones are, I believe, one of the original OSU Blue strains. Got it off ebay last year and they didn't specify exactly what it was, but that was the only blue out there at the time.

And yes, they grow true to type from seed (assuming no crossbreeding with other regular tomatoes, of course). Gave some seed from last year to a friend this year, and he has a half dozen of the plants trying to take over his back yard.

While they grow true to type, it should be noted that the original OSU had a lot of variety from what I've read. Some people reported it as being a horrid little tomato, while the ones I have are practically candy sweet. If you order some, go for the Indigo Rose strain, as it seems to be the sweetest OSU strain.

And for the record, they will turn utterly black all the way around if you put a reflective mulch around them (white stone, light colored straw, etc). Otherwise, just the tops will turn due to being the only part exposed to direct strong light.

I prefer letting the bottoms not change (dark colored soil/mulch/cover), as it makes it so much easier to tell when they're ripe.

Although, it doesn't take them long to turn, so I guess I could wait until they go orange then put some poster board down under them. By the time they turn black all around they should be fully ripe as well.

And yes, I still have several more tomatoes on the pineapple (thank God for context, or that sentence would make no sense at all). I'm not going to pull it after one bad fruit, so its got plenty more chances to shape up.

If anything, my tomatoes are probably slightly underwatered as is. They're in the same patch as my peppers, and I only water when the peppers start acting droopy, and those things like it on the dry side.

Up side is that I haven't had any issues with my tomatoes cracking since I switched to watering them on the pepper schedule.

I picked the first fruit around mid August. I happened to have 2 plants and they have been very prolific. Right now they have several good size fruits. AND another interesting feature is that they're disease resistance. They have the healthiest foliage right now. Fruits average about 12oz ( 10 to 18 oz),. shape is either boat shaped or round flat. For the given size of the fruits and in our cool PNW climate, AN has been a winner.
It is the only tomato that I slice and eat with dash of salt. It is juicy and slightly tangy. That is what I vision a perfect tomato.

The name means Black Pineapple. This is an interesting medium to large size tomato that has a green and dark purple exterior. The interior is mostly a vivid bright green with red streaks radiating throughout the flesh. A very tasty tomato that is an excellent producer but the fruit is unusually soft and must be eaten soon after harvest. Indeterminate, regular leaf foliage. (75 days from transplant).

Here is few more pictures:

As mentioned in the reviews and I confirm, It is sweet, with right acidity and with creamy texture. I was the only tomato of my 20 or so varieties that I used to slice and eat.

Unlike Carolyn, I love multi color tomatoes. I also had regular pine apple but d this is the top one for me .

I don't understan how they name thi BLACK pineapple. There is no trace of black, brown and even purple in it. If I were to name it , I would call it RAINBOW PINEAPPLE.This has more rainbow colors in it than any tomato that I know of. It has got RED, YELLOW ORANGE, AND GREEN in a very harmonious way.